I think labelling them "terrorist" have done wonders. This is also being picked up by foreign news and also the respective country's travel advisories.

By labelling them as terrorist, Malaysia now has the right to freeze assets of the said perpetrators and their sympathisers. If the US also label them as terrorist and recognized their terror acts, then they can say bye bye to any international recognition to their Sultanate claims.

Which I believe is the main reason why suddenly MNLF and whatever F is announcing that they are not in any way supporting the struggle or even suggesting any violent means to achieve it. Because at the current moment, they are still a recognized entity in the Philipines and the world. Imagine if suddenly their organisation being labeled as terrorist and funding of terrorist, it would do extreme harm to their fight for the Bangsamoro cause. They would be hunted down like the Jemaah Islamyiaah group. The US in Philipines will also be lending support in terms of surveillence, intel etc. In other words, diplomatically they would have killed their own aspirations as a nation.

Also the MNLF committee which was previously very quiet on the matter suddenly released a statement regarding their non-support for the Suluk cause and reject their armed struggle philosophy. And instead suggest diplomatic ways to discuss the matter. Also they even have to censure their own founder Nur Misuari for claiming MNLF is sending 10k troops and threatening Manila and KL will be targets if Suluks are harmed. This only makes them look more like terrorist which is what they are trying to avoid.

So in short, the Suluks are now caught between their pride and their future as a recognized entity. If they do not renounce their violent struggle, they just torpedoed their only escape from being labelled a terrorist group. MNLF has officially remounce their support for armed Suluk struggle for Sabah. MILF which is friendlier to Malaysia also announced that this has nothing to do with them and does not see any need for violence.

I think previously MNLF committee was using a wait and see approach and allowed Nur Misuari to engage the Kiram family. They were (Muslimin) pretty quiet about the whole thing and only Nur Misuari was the vocal advocate for the Kirams. I realised it was after the 'terrorist' label was given to the Suluk invaders and their supporters and its propagation in the foreign news network and government advisories did the committee realised what a mistake it was to actually support the Suluk group.

The MNLF are trying to be 'abang' for the Moro as their 'adik' MILF is already top dog at the moment being acknowledged and recognized by Malaysia and the Philipine. So the MNLF by supporting the Suluk initially, it would actually raise a lot of Sulu support for their own organization. But it back-fired of course so now they are doing damage control and suddenly releasing un-told stories of how they were in the back ground trying to negotiate/defuse tension etc. Previously habok pun tak nampak.

The posturing of the MNLF boasting large armies (10k), hidden weapons in Sabah, know-how of Malaysian army tactics, support of local populace etc. is all just to project an important/strong persona to recruit and also attract support to their cause and organization. They have to show that they still are an entity to be reckoned with. Even if they don't do a thing in Sabah, their posturing will sure to attract new recruits to their ranks from the Sulu people by 'pretending' to be the defender of the Sulu Sultanate. Doing this, they will then be considered as another entity 'worthy' of negotiating with.

The MILF armies are still very strong and has been 'given' a mandate to hunt down the Abu Sayyaf Group (ABG). This re-inforces their image as an enforcer for Bangsamoro. While the MNLF left out in the cold with nothing to show. Perhaps this was their way of trying to bolster their own image for the people in power to see.

That fella is an advisor/lawyer to the MNLF commitee. I think he is just as surprised by Kiram's move and is doing all sorts of explanations that it is not sanctioned by MNLF.

He also said this 'invasion' is 'wayang' one, maybe because it is not orchestrated by MNLF. But their name is being bandied as the supporter.

Who knows, maybe some Filipino politician trying to make MLNF look bad?

Reading the Pinoy news,

noticed that the Kirams are now admitting all 200-300 terrorist are armed.

During the earlier news report, only 30 were supposedly armed escorting the 200+ civilians. Now latest 'princess' statement is that all their 'fighters' are armed.

This shows that there was intention to downplay the severity of the intrusion or hide their true capabilities. Imagine earlier if Malaysia authorities completely believed their non-aggressive intentions and only send a small force to monitor the situation. The force would be completely overwhelmed. This was also true in terms of our Home Minister announcing that these people weren't militants in the early week of the intrusion which probably proved that these 'terrorist' were not showing their true colors(weaponry) yet.

It was probably to confused the authorities of their military capabilities. I mean, its one thing to expect 270 civilians and face 30 armed men, but 300 veteran fighters is another.

As it is seen in Semporna, even a small number of heavily armed terrorist can cause maximum damage if the authorities are not expecting any resistance.

This post has been edited by Skidd Chung: Mar 9 2013, 10:45 PM

Yup, this is probably hidden when they came onshore.

I remember earlier when there was an interview with a villager who saw them came onshore, he mentioned there were more than 50 armed men and more came on shore.. But news only reported 30 as stated by the Kirams. Maybe because it would be hard for a villager to count so many armed people in the dark so they discounted that amount for fear of exaggerating the gravity of the situation.

But if anyone has been following the news daily, can see how a group of 200+ civilians and 30 armed men suddenly becomes 300 heavily armed intruders.